Published:
First published in 1930 in Lenin Miscellany XIII.
Sent from Cracow to San Remo.
Printed from the original.
Source:
Lenin
Collected Works,
Progress Publishers,
1971,
Moscow,
Volume 36,
pages 202-203.
Translated: Andrew Rothstein
Transcription\Markup:
R. Cymbala
Public Domain:
Lenin Internet Archive.
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Text
• README
November 17, 1912
Dear Comrade,
I have just sent you a telegram about our agreement to the combination which you decided upon with Rubanovich.
We ask you to lay before the commission,[3] by way of information, our shade of opinion, too, if we happen to differ with you on the following point.
Kautsky’s article in No. 6 of Neue Zeit, after the October session of the I.S.B.,[4] is obviously the official opinion of the Germans, the Austrians and others. We do not accept the main point of the article (S. 191–92, from the words “Dabei müssen”[1] to “heischenden Massen”[2] in particular).[5]
With Kautsky it turns out to be a pledge against a revolutionary mass strike. This is inadmissible both from the Russian standpoint (there are 100,000 political strikers now in St. Petersburg, with revolutionary meetings and sympathies for the sailors’ mutiny) and from the general European standpoint. However, you know our point of view from our writings, and I hope you will not object to having a talk with Comrade Kamenev.
Comrade Kamenev is our delegate to the I.S.B. (M. Rosenfeld, 11. Rue Roli. 11. Paris XIV).
Please cable him if you are not going, and if you are, please see him before the commission at Basle (M. Rosenfeld. Poste Restante, Bâle).
If you don’t go for some reason, please send your vote in writing for the election (of Rubanovich or Kamenev) to the commission.
Respectfully yours,
N. Lenin
Wl. Uljanow. 47. Lubomirskiego. Autriche. Krakau.
[1] In this connection, must.—Ed.
[2] Clamouring masses.—Ed.
[3] A reference to the commission of the Basle (Extraordinary) Congress of the Second International for working out a manifesto against the war danger. The Congress, called in connection with the Balkan war and the mounting threat of a world-wide imperialist war, was held on November 24 and 25,1912. The commission consisted of one delegate each from France, Germany, Britain and Russia. By agreement between representatives of the R.S.D.L.P. and the International Socialist Bureau, the Russian member was I. Rubanovich, a Socialist-Revolutionary. On November 25, the Congress unanimously adopted a manifesto calling on the workers to make use of the proletariat’s organisation and strength for waging a revolutionary struggle against the threat of war.
[4] The I.S.B. meeting, held in Brussels on October 28 and 29, 1912, decided to call an extraordinary socialist congress. Russia was represented by Plekhanov and Rubanovich. The I.S.B. held a special closed sitting to discuss Russian affairs.
[5] Kautsky’s article, “Der Krieg und die Internationale” (War and the International) published in No. 6 of Die Neue Zeit on November 8, 1912, pp. 191–92.
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